Bott-Chern Poincaré lemma 2026-10-05
On a polydisc, for . A Poincare lemma primitive for a closed pure-type form can be modified by exact terms until only bidegrees and remain. The Dolbeault-Poincaré lemma and conjugate Dolbeault-Poincaré lemma then make the original form -exact.
Čech-de Rham double complex 2026-10-07
On a good cover, combine Čech degree and differential-form degree in the double complex of forms on intersections. The Čech differential and exterior derivative commute, so the total differential squares to zero. A partition of unity and the Poincare lemma identify its cohomology with both constant-sheaf and de Rham cohomology. The sign convention makes Čech-de Rham curvature descent explicit.
Closed differential one-form 2026-10-06
A differential one-form is closed when its exterior derivative vanishes. In coordinates, is closed exactly when . The Poincare lemma makes it locally an exact differential form, but global exactness can fail through nonzero integrals around closed curves.
Conservative vector field Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A vector field is conservative when for a potential of a conservative vector field . On a simply connected open subset of , every continuously differentiable curl-free vector field is conservative. Locally this follows from the Poincare lemma applied to the differential one-form ; globally, simple connectivity makes its line integral independent of the path. The fundamental theorem for line integrals expresses that path independence as the difference of the potential at the endpoints.
de Rham theorem 2026-10-07
The complex of smooth differential forms resolves the constant complex sheaf by the Poincare lemma and consists of fine sheaves. Its global cohomology therefore agrees with sheaf cohomology of that constant sheaf. A good-cover Čech-de Rham double complex gives an explicit comparison, used in Čech-de Rham curvature descent.
First de Rham cohomology of the two-sphere 2026-10-06
A closed differential form of degree one on the two-sphere has primitives on its north-punctured and south-punctured charts by the Poincare lemma. The overlap is connected, so their difference is constant. Adjust one constant and glue the primitives. Thus every closed one-form is an exact differential form, proving the first de Rham cohomology vanishes.
Green-theorem proof of exactness on a disc 2026-10-06
On a star-shaped planar domain containing zero, let be a smooth closed differential one-form and set . Green theorem on the triangle with vertices gives . Dividing by a displacement and taking its limit proves . Thus every such form is an exact differential form, a degree-one version of the Poincare lemma which uses only the planar integral theorem.
Irrotational vector field Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
A continuously differentiable vector field on an open subset of three-dimensional Euclidean space is irrotational when its curl is zero. Under the Euclidean identification , this says that the differential one-form is a closed differential form. The Poincare lemma gives a potential of a conservative vector field locally. A global potential additionally requires zero line integrals around every closed curve; simply connected domains ensures this. On the punctured plane extended in the third direction, has zero curl but integral around a circle, so it is locally conservative and has no single-valued global potential.
For a smooth differential one-form with , take a manifold chart identifying a neighborhood with a ball centered at zero, and set . Closedness means . ConsequentlyThus in any dimension. This is the one-form case of the Poincare lemma, and applies to spacetime as well as three-dimensional vector calculus. A global potential need not exist on a domain with nonzero periods.
Local real potential for a closed (1,1)-form 2026-10-06
For a closed real form, the Poincare lemma gives a real one-form with . Its part is -closed, so the Dolbeault-Poincaré lemma gives . Reality gives , hence . Positivity is a separate requirement for this form to define a metric.
Normalized Killing one-form 2026-10-06
For a non-null Killing vector field of a Levi-Civita connection, hypersurface orthogonality implies that , with , is a closed differential form. The Killing equation and give , whence . The Poincare lemma gives locally. For a timelike , supplies local static time coordinates. This does not assert global exactness.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 ia Paper 3 11C b Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-07
Assume the continuously differentiable irrotational vector field is defined on all of , as in this vector calculus setting. A constructive vector-field potential with the requested negative-gradient convention isSince zero curl means , differentiation under the integral givesThus . This is the Poincare lemma in its straight-line form, and works on any star-shaped set about the integration base point. Zero curl on a domain with holes would not by itself guarantee a global vector-field potential; the full-space hypothesis matters.
For the given field, the second component requires . Integration in gives . Its derivative is , and its derivative is . Comparison with the other two components forces . HenceIts negative gradient is exactly the given field. Because this vector-field potential is smooth everywhere, commutation of mixed partial derivatives gives , verifying irrotationality. All such vector-field potentials differ by a constant on the connected domain.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 1 iii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
Under the given rank hypothesis, the necessary and sufficient local condition isVanishing only at the single point would not suffice: an extension preserves the coordinate Poisson brackets throughout its domain. Necessity follows from the coordinate criterion just proved.
For sufficiency, put and . Because the symplectic form is a nondegenerate bilinear form at every point, the independent differentials give independent fields . They commute, sinceMoreover , so they span the tangent spaces of the -dimensional fibres of the submersion . Choose a local section transverse to those fibres. Its joint local flow defines coordinates byThe inverse function theorem makes a local diffeomorphism, and commuting flows give .
In these coordinates . Each flow preserves the symplectic form, by Cartan's magic formula. Thus its coefficients are independent of , andwhere is a closed differential two-form on the base. On a small ball, the Poincare lemma gives , with . DefineThenConsequently the original coordinates are extended to the required canonical transformation , with the prescribed first half . Its Jacobian matrix is invertible by construction. This is the canonical completion of independent commuting functions. For the printed data, the flows and resulting canonical transformation can be taken , which is sufficient to preserve the symplectic form; smooth data give smooth coordinates.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2012 iii Paper 20 3 ii Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-07
The Arnold-Liouville theorem concerns a connected compact component of a regular common level of commuting independent smooth functions on a -dimensional symplectic manifold. It states that is a Lagrangian torus, and that a neighbourhood of has action-angle variablesin which every depends only on . If or, more generally, , its Hamiltonian flow satisfiesAngles have period here. The theorem is local near this regular compact component; it does not assert globally defined action-angle variables across singular levels or over an entire base with monodromy.
First, has dimension of a manifold by the submersion theorem. The Hamiltonian vector fields are independent, tangent to , and commute. They span . Moreoverso is a Lagrangian submanifold. Compactness makes these restricted vector fields complete. Their joint flow is an -action on . Its orbits are open because the fields span , so connectedness gives one orbit. The stabilizer of a point is discrete by the inverse function theorem, andCompactness forces to be a full-rank Euclidean lattice: otherwise an unbounded linear coordinate transverse to its span would descend to the quotient. Thus is an -torus.
Next choose a small ball of regular values near and a neighbourhood of this component which is a product family of compact tori . This local trivialization follows directly by choosing transverse vector fields with and lifting short radial paths in the base; compactness of gives a uniform neighbourhood where their flows exist. Hence deformation retracts onto . The commuting joint flows on nearby fibres have smoothly varying full-rank Hamiltonian period lattices. A basis of their periods can be chosen smoothly on this small ball: continue the return equations from a basis at the central fibre, using their nonsingular vertical flow derivatives and the implicit function theorem. No global choice of lattice basis is needed.
Because and retracts onto , its closed symplectic form is exact on . Choose a one-form with . Let be the smoothly continued cycles represented by the period basis and define the action integralsFor a transverse variation of the fibre, differentiating a cycle integral and using Cartan's magic formula eliminates the integral of the exact term. With the cycle parametrized by the joint-flow time , this givesThusThe period matrix is nonsingular, so gives coordinates on the base. The corresponding Hamiltonian vector fields satisfyTheir time- flows return along the basis cycles. They commute because each is a function of the commuting . Consequently they give a free torus action on .
Choose a section over the action-coordinate ball and use this torus action to define angles . Since , the symplectic form takes the formThe closed base two-form is exact on the ball: write , , by the Poincare lemma. Changing the angular origins by removes this term, since . This completes the construction of action-angle variables. The functions are constant on the fibres, so are functions of alone, and Hamilton's equations give the claimed straight-line motion. This proves both the topological and symplectic parts of the Arnold-Liouville theorem.